


Shattered

by Cojiko



Series: The Krillin Rare-Pair Melting Pot [7]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Car Accidents, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, My attempt at a darker story, On Indefinite Hiatus, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-01-25 09:51:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21354322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cojiko/pseuds/Cojiko
Summary: I published this story once before about a month or two ago, but deleted it shortly thereafter. I wasn't completely satisfied with what I had, so I removed it from AO3 and saved it for a later revision.I hope what I've got is okay.
Relationships: Krillin & Son Goku (Dragon Ball), Krillin/Son Goku (Dragon Ball)
Series: The Krillin Rare-Pair Melting Pot [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1452700
Kudos: 13





	1. Crash and Burn

**Author's Note:**

> I published this story once before about a month or two ago, but deleted it shortly thereafter. I wasn't completely satisfied with what I had, so I removed it from AO3 and saved it for a later revision.  
I hope what I've got is okay.

8:51 P.M. Downtown Papaya Island

“Geez, Goku, you didn’t need to eat _that_ much!”

“I was hungry, what else was I ‘sposed to do?”

“I dunno, maybe _not_ eat Master Roshi out of house and home?”

Goku, Krillin, and Master Roshi were sitting in a taxi, on their way back to their hotel from the restaurant. The World Martial Arts Tournament has ended and boy, what an astounding end it was! Goku had transformed into a giant ape, Jackie Chun destroyed the moon, and although Goku lost the fight due to hunger, everything else had been just amazing! After Goku wrecked house with dinner, all that was left to do is to get some rest and go on home. Bulma, Puar, Oolong, and Yamcha had already gone back to their rooms for the night, so it was only the Turtle School students and Master in the car alongside the taxi driver.

Until then, there wasn’t much else to do in the car except talk. Right now the pupils were discussing Goku’s bizarre eating habits.

“Seriously, isn’t there a time when you _don’t_ feel hungry?” Krillin asked.

“I dunno…I don’t really pay attention to when I’m not hungry. I think it’s cuz I’m doing other things when that happens,” Goku pondered, putting a hand on his chin.

Krillin snickered, as he couldn’t help but smile at his friend’s obliviousness. It could be annoying sometimes, but he’s learned to tolerate it to an extent.

“So, what do you wanna do when we get home, Goku?” Krillin prodded, placing his hands behind his head.

“Hm…I think I’ll try to go find my Grandpa’s dragon ball,” The monkey boy answered as if Krillin should know what a dragon ball was.

“What the heck is a dragon ball?” The pre-teen asked with reasonable confusion.

“It’s a magical ball my Grandpa gave me! It’s where his spirit went after he died, so I gotta go get it back.”

And that was the extent Krillin was going to smile at. Now he just raised an eyebrow at his peer’s seemingly absurd goal.

“And you know that your Grandpa is this ball…how?”

“Sometimes when I spoke to him, he glowed like he was tryin’ to talk back!”

“…Yeah, sure, that makes total sense,” Krillin muttered sarcastically. He began to lean his left side against his car door, watching all the other vehicles drive past. Everything had gotten so quiet, the student felt like he was going to fall asleep. But just as he’d begun to drift off, a harsh, bright light appeared outside Krillin’s window. It was so harsh, in fact, that the young boy could hardly keep his eyes open_ nor_ could he squeeze them shut to block off the sudden beam.

_(Gah! What the heck is that!?)_

Krillin tried to simultaneously open and squint his eyes to see what this light was, but it didn’t do much to help. All he could really see was that the light was weaving to the left and right, not much else to say. Krillin resorted to pressing his face against the window to get a better look, which annoyed Master Roshi.

“Krillin, what in the sam hell are you doing?” The old teacher berated. Krillin turned to face him, leaning his arm up against the window.

“Master Roshi, there’s something really bright-”

A thunderous crash of metal and glass rang throughout the street. In a split-second, the taxi was suddenly flung straight into a side street to the right. It flipped, rolled, and bounded right through the tiny district at ungodly speeds. Everyone inside was tossed and turned like a brutal salad up until the taxi crashed roof-first into…something. It’s hard to tell what you’ve crashed into when you’re barrelling at the speed of light.

A period that felt like several hours passed…more than likely, it was about thirty minutes. Sirens blare throughout Papaya Island and flashing emergency vehicles surround the crashed taxi. Krillin’s eyes slowly open as they are subsequently blinded by an assortment of intense colors. He could barely register what happened around him…or on him, for that matter. Krillin couldn’t tell if he was dead, close to dying, or what.

The other passengers appeared to be unconscious…hopefully. Goku was curled up on the floor of the car, unmoving but breathing. The monkey boy was the only one Krillin had a definitive answer for since he can’t tell whether Roshi and the driver are okay from the back seat. Glancing down at himself, Krillin saw a truly gut-wrenching sight. His left arm was completely red and had bits of glass poking out from everywhere…but it didn’t hurt? For some reason, Krillin couldn't feel that his arm was in any sort of pain or the like. The only word he could use to describe this sensation was _stuck_ because no matter how much the pupil tried, nothing in this arm moved an inch. Was it broken?

“How many do we have in there, rookie?!” A muffled voice could be heard from behind the cracked window.

“Mr. Nashi, we’ve got four people in this car! Two of them look like kids!” Another one answered.

“Alright, we’re going to need to get that door open quickly! Get the hydraulic cutter ready, team!”

Before Krillin knew it or could really respond, another loud sound blared into his ears as the metal was crushed and pinched. After a few minutes, his side door was taken clean off the hinges and a large silhouette appeared before him.

“God on Earth…” The second voice sounded pained as a pair of large hands slowly pulled the student out of the back seat and out in the open. Krillin went from barely seeing to unable to see within five seconds, though his other senses would quickly become a blur soon after.

“Sir, I got one out. He’s breathing, but he’s badly injured.”

“Shit…Get him in the ambᵘˡᵃⁿᶜᵉ…”

Before he could hear what these guys were saying, Krillin felt darkness overtake him. Eventually, everything turned to a numb, inky black…


	2. Chapter 2: Awakening

When he woke up, all Krillin could see was the bright white ceiling above him. The intensity forced him to squint his eyes until they adjusted to the light around him. This gave him time to feel where exactly he was right now and as far as he could tell, the young boy was lying down on a bed. It was a bed with a crinkly sheet and a big, fluffy pillow, so it was the middle of the road in terms of comfortability.

_(What happened…? Where…Where am I?)_

The last thing Krillin could remember was riding a taxi back to the hotel. He was sitting in the back, talking with Goku…everything was going well. Then this big flash of light shined through the window on his side and there was this loud crunch of metal a few seconds later. Then everything tossed and turned around him…and now he was here. There may have been other things, but Krillin wasn’t sure about those.

A lot of things felt fuzzy, for some reason. His head, his body, his face, even his sense of smell was all out of whack. Everything just smelled like a doctor’s office…maybe he was in one? Krillin tried lifting himself up to check, but…

“G-Gah…!”

A sudden, sharp pain coursed through his chest, keeping him grounded to the mattress. Ugh, everything also felt like crap…well, everything except, again, his left arm. That was starting to make him more than a bit concerned, but there wasn't much time for that now.

“Oh! K-Krillin, you’re awake!!” A familiar voice cried out from the right. Turning his head as much as he could, Krillin saw Goku coming from the right. With little warning, he wrapped his friend into a hug, though he was careful to not aggravate whatever was causing Krillin’s pain. The little boy seemed to have a couple of bandages on his cheeks and wrapped around his forehead…When did he get those?

“Ungh…Go…ku?” Krillin managed to muster out. The young boy trembled at his bedside, barely able to keep himself composed.

“Krillin, I was so scared! I thought you were gonna die!!” Goku whimpered into his friend’s blanket.

“Wha? Die…? W-Why’d you think that…?”

“Because we were just in a car crash, kiddo.” An old, familiar voice revealed.

Krillin looked up to see Master Roshi standing over him and Goku. He too had some bandages wrapped around his head, as well as his right bicep. The old master had lost his nice jacket and hat, only wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt and black pants.

“M-Master Roshi…? What happened?” Krillin coughed out.

The old master paused a brief moment, unsure of how he should explain this situation.

“Our taxi got hit by a drunk driver going 70 at the intersection…” Roshi solemnly explained.  
“From what the staff told me, we must’ve bounced ‘bout six or seven times before the car finally landed. Frankly, it’s a miracle we’re even alive at all.”

A car crash? Ah, so that's it! They all must be inside a hospital! That explains the crinkly bed and the smell of numbing agents. Krillin smiled weakly.

“Well, at least we’re all okay, right? You and Goku don’t look too dinged up…”

“True, but…I’m afraid that’s the least of the bad news, my boy.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Krillin tried to lift himself up again, but the sharp pain and Goku prevented him from doing so. Roshi ushered the boy to stay down, which was probably for the best right now.

“You were terribly injured in that crash, Krillin. You were in surgery for about…four hours, I believe.”

“I was…in surgery? H-How badly was I hurt?”

“Very badly…That drunk rammed us from your side and made you bear the brunt of it all. But I’m glad you were able to pull through it like a champ.” Roshi gently patted Krillin’s shoulder, his expression softening just a bit. Goku pulled back from his hug, still wearing a concerned look on his face.

“It seems like it really hurt, though. You sounded real bad when ya tried to move, Krillin.”

“Y-You idiot…Surgery doesn’t hurt until after you wake up, I think,” Krillin hoarsely reprimanded. He tried to lean over and give Goku a joking chop to the head, but when the blanket fell off his left shoulder…

…

…

…What?

Wait…w-where was it? It should be there, right? Krillin wasn’t given too many pain killers, right? If he was, then this would suddenly make a lot more sense as a drug-induced hallucination.

No, no, that can’t be right. If he was still on pain meds, then Krillin wouldn’t have felt that sharp pain on his chest! If he really wasn’t on any more pain relievers, then that raises a question that everyone wishes they'll never have to confront.

_(W-Where…Where’s my arm!?)_

\- - -To be continued- - -


End file.
